I'm a jew in america in the first half of the 20th century. What sorts of prejudices would I have experienced from the surrounding cultural community? Would these attitudes have changed in the buildup to the WWII and subsequent related events?

by Coronis12
firerosearien

Hello! I'm a Jewish American whose ancestors emigrated around then!

Many old world prejudices were still a thing. Hotels would have signs saying "reserved" which meant no blacks or Jews. Universities had quotas - that my grandfather went to law school in the 1930s was impressive - and many banks/law firms wouldn't hire Jews, so Jewish people created their own (and that's one of the reasons we see so many Jewish-named firms today).

There was also the case of Lawrence Frank, who was lynched - but I'm not an expert on that.

Anti Semitism didn't really start to die down until the 1950s/1960s, when the horrors of the Holocaust became better known. The Jewish community knew what was happening and tried to warn the government, but mostly fell on deaf and otherwise occupied ears. The book FDR and the Jews is a good primer, as is Eric Larsson's pop history In the Garden of Beasts, discussing how casual anti semitism was the rule rather than the exception.

That said, as a Jew in America in the early 1900s, you would likely still live in a relatively insular Jewish community - the longer your family has been here, the more assimilated you would be. You're probably living in a city, and day to day you might have been poor, but the big difference was you weren't worried that the government was going to kill you. And that is a not insignificant diference.